Official thread of the Dallas Mavericks

[Gedas]

Don't go knocking on Steve Nash's sense of urgency and wits on the defensive end. That knocking the ball out of Terry's leg was brilliant and really what saved the day. And since the MVP race is all about Nowitzki and Nash, neither of them play great defense...

Nowitzki is a MUCH better defensive player. No ball-knocking into a leg is going to change that.

[Axel]

Don't go knocking on Steve Nash's sense of urgency and wits on the defensive end. That knocking the ball out of Terry's leg was brilliant and really what saved the day. And since the MVP race is all about Nowitzki and Nash, neither of them play great defense...

Nowitzki is a MUCH better defensive player. No ball-knocking into a leg is going to change that.

Of course he is, he's from Europe.

[Lamrock]

Still haven't had the chance to look at the game...I wonder, was the game better than Nets-Suns 161-157 game?

It is better because it matters more. It is between the top 2 teams in the league with a month until playoffs in a race to the top seed. Not a top-tier team facing a mediocre team 20 games into the season. But seriously... greatest game I've watched since Suns-Clippers Game 5 last year, even though I really hoped Dallas would win.

[jonthefon]

Damn, I couldn't watch the game. Had no tapes either . At school, which means it's kind of hard even with NBA League Pass. I thought the Mavs were out of it at halftime though.

[Metsis]

Don't go knocking on Steve Nash's sense of urgency and wits on the defensive end. That knocking the ball out of Terry's leg was brilliant and really what saved the day. And since the MVP race is all about Nowitzki and Nash, neither of them play great defense...

Nowitzki is a MUCH better defensive player. No ball-knocking into a leg is going to change that.

Nowitzki usually gets the easy assignments on defense... And of course if guards your typical "big" that is not much more than big, then he will of course look good. It's because Dallas is hiding his defense on the defensive end. It's not like he guards the Amare's or TMac's or Kobe's of the league. Dirk is easily beat by a smaller athletic player...

I wasn't saying that just that one move made NASH a Bowen comparable, but it's not like he doesn't play defense... C'mon... Same goes for the entire Phoenix team. They do play defense. Mediocre defense, but half of the league is worse than them. So it's not like they don't play D at all.

Phoenix games just score higher since there are more posessions. If you really want to make your team look top on the defense, you just need to attack those 22-24 second attacks to lower the posessions. Sure it won't be pretty, and you're probably going to lose, but the opponents sure as hell aren't going to score tons on you. So teams like Chicago that are regarded as defensive stalwarts are probably playing slow paced games that just take the speed from the game and have a low amount of posessions in them. You can usually score only once during a posession.

But don't say that Nowitzki is so much better than Nash on defense. They are both ok... Dirk maybe a little better due to his size, but it's not like you can get into the NBA without playing any defense. There just are guys in the league that make you look bad... This is a game still that is dominated by the offensive player and the defender can only react and hope to distract the offense well enough to fail.

[Lamrock]

Well, with the win vs. Boston, and the Suns' back-to-back losses, they have quite a bit of breathing room for the first seed. Looks like they should be fine until the conf. finals where they face SA or PHX..

[shadowgrin]

Is it just me or does Dallas seem a bit scary as a team.
They have a post defender in Diop and they finally have a big perimeter defender in Hassell, where Harris and Terry are too small to guard bigger perimeter players.
Eddie Jones though a step slower now is still a capable perimeter defender also.

[Fresh8]

Jones and, was it, Hassell shut LeBron down really good.

[Lamrock]

Dallas is my sleeper team to win it all.

[---]

When a team that won 67 games last year becomes a sleeper, something is wrong.

[McDwyane]

Mavs officially sign Juwan Howard..can't wait to see him play.

[shadowgrin]

They can now play small ball and still have defense and they still have inside scoring with Dirk and Josh and outside scoring with Terry and Harris..

C: Dirk
PF: Josh Howard
SF: Hassell
SG: Terry
PG: Harris

Or they can stick to a conventional lineup and still have defense..

C: Diop
PF: Dirk
SF: Josh Howard
SG: Hassell
PG: Terry/Harris

[J J]

Even after Spurs won the trophy, I still think the Mavericks would easily knock them off if it wasn't for the Warriors, as for my opinion, they are the team to beat this year, and a couple of years to come.

[jonthefon]

Mark my words: this year's team is better than the last. We still might not be able to beat the Warriors, but there's a lot more solidity that's formed over the summer.

Even though Cleveland sucked, it was a mashing even without three pieces in the two Howards and Dampier.

I won't open my mouth yet about championships.

[Finley]

Mavs are my favorite Western Conference team, largely because they have Larry Bird's long-lost German son. Liked them more when Finley was around.

hell yes
nash dirk finely and jamison

[jonthefon]

Don't put Jamison in there, please. We traded away Nick Van Exel for him, and Van Exel was huge during the 2003 playoffs run. 40 points on Sacramento.

I always thought the 03-04 Mavs season caused Nash to leave (because of yet another first-round exit). If we'd kept Van Exel and LaFrentz, the defence would've been better, the depth a little better, the exact same core could have made a trip to the Finals since LA beat San Antonio and Dallas was good enough to beat Minny.

And the more important thing:

DALLAS WIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Funny how we Mavs fans can get so hyped over such a thing.

EDIT: And did anybody notice that fucker Reggie Miller jinxing Stackhouse by mentioning free-throw stats? Karma that the Warriors lost.

[Lamrock]

I think that last year has really soured the Mavs on regular season success. I understand that regular season records aren't all that important in the end, but right now, I think they are underachieving to the extreme here.

[Abctest123]

About freaking time the Raptors didnt lose a 20+ point lead to the Mavs. Raptors finally beat the Mavs after I don't know how long.